Empathy
by LEva114
Summary: Hyrule is far removed from its past glory - magic users are now reviled and forced to take drugs that inhibit their gifts. But the leader of the land is not all he seems, and when his plan finally comes to fruition, ancient voices begin to whisper in the ears of the only Two who can stop him and his Master. Modern AU - rated T for language, violence/gore, darker themes, and death.


The room was dank and dark, an unfortunate side effect of having been constructed underground near the river that cut through Lanayru City. The flames of the candles seemed to have no effect on the darkness that hung in the air like smoke. It choked the light until nothing remained but cold pinpricks of yellow scattered through the room like stars in the night sky. Near the altar, they clustered like a constellation, and together, were able to shine some light on the pile of ashes.

The man lurking in the corner of the cell stared at the heap of dust as if willing for it to rise already. He knew it couldn't be done without the catalyst, but he was growing impatient. His contact supposedly had the girl already and was on his way from the pick-up site – what could be taking him so long?

The man shivered, the polished surface of his shoes catching the meager light from the candles as he shifted from foot to foot anxiously. The stress of his current station up above weighed heavily on his mind, and even if this place lacked any of the comforts of home, it was still an escape from the country above that he was in charge of. He was sick of smiling under his glamour and tricks, sick of answering to a false name, and most of all, sick of trying to find the daughter who could easily ruin him.

The little whore had disappeared with that rotten Sheikah boy she had been going on about for weeks – she took after her mother: a traitor, a cheat, and a slut. His jaw clenched at the thought of them sleeping together, hackles rising under the expensive fabric of his suit.

He knew that sending her away to college was a bad idea, but she had pleaded for months, got him to trust her until finally, finally, he had no choice but to say yes. He was an idiot for not seeing what she was before, because by the time he had realized and tried to rein her in, she was too powerful to contain and she was gone.

His eyes returned to the pile of ashes, roaming over the shadows the light made in the miniature geography of the soft material. When his master was finally woken, he would not be pleased. He had long seen potential in the girl – potential for power, yes, but also the potential for her to be bent to their will and used. Hyrule was a vast country, and while his master would be as powerful as the gods once the other Two were captured, he needed generals, ambassadors – aid that wouldn't question him. He already had two, and even though they were working on a third, a fourth, and a fifth, they could always use more.

The man started when the candles flared brighter, feeding off the sudden surge of power in the air. His contact was coming.

There was a metallic crash, and the light died down as two figures, one slung over the other, appeared in the center of the room. The man that had just arrived coughed loudly and his superior could see him gesticulating with his free hand.

"What's the meaning of all this darkness, Zant? We have to be able to see what we're doing if we're going to complete the sacrifice." His voice boomed out into the darkness, clearly annoyed. Zant rolled his eyes, gestured rigidly with his left hand. The darkness was lifted by the wordless addition of three floating blue lights that bobbed at ceiling level, revealing the man and his prisoner. His hair was shorn and brown, and his face was tanned and mildly handsome. Under the dried blood splattered all over his face and chest, he looked like a man you could pass on the street and forget about two seconds later. His nose twitched when he saw Zant's scathing look at the gore messing his appearance.

"Take this hideous glamour of off me," Ghirahim hissed, dropping the girl in his hands to the ground with a grunt and a moan on her end. Zant let out a noise of disapproval, his eyes narrowing.

"Idiot. You know we need her healthy for this! How much damage did you do when you were capturing her?"

"I only knocked her a couple times on the head. Trust me, the brat hurt me more than I did her," he scoffed, rolling up his stained sleeves like a butcher at work to show him the scratch marks furrowed into his skin. He flashed a nasty bite mark on the fleshy part of his hand at the same time. Zant nodded, his orange eyes gleaming vacantly.

"Then what about the blood?" he snapped after a beat.

"There was a boy she was with, and they put up a fight when I showed myself," he said shortly. "I slit his throat and threw the body into the sea. He wasn't even a challenge." Ghirahim's face split into a nasty smile, and Zant noticed that blood tainted the corners of his lips and stained his white teeth pink. It was like Ghirahim wanted him to know he was lying. He held back a shudder, then walked over and squatted down next to the girl on the floor.

Her mouth was slightly ajar; her dark eyes lazy slits in her tanned face. They flickered softly when he turned her face towards his. She was twelve, maybe thirteen if you were being generous. Baby fat still padded her pretty features, and a small silver glyph hung on a chain around her neck – he needed to brush up on his Island dialects, but it looked similar to the Hyrulean T.

What was her name again? Teyah? Telma? Tina? He couldn't quite remember.

So young—he could remember when his daughter was this age.

His nose wrinkled as he pulled her unresisting hand up to inspect the back of it. It was clean of any marks other than a couple of freckles. That was how it was supposed to be, but suspicion still coiled in his stomach and made him swallow anxiously. If they were wrong, the ritual could end badly.

"You're sure she's the right one?" His voice was doubtful, but otherwise emotionless.

"Yes, yes! Of course she's the right one. You wanted the youngest daughter of the Harkinian line, and I got you just that. Now take this horrid false skin off of me…I've been wearing it for weeks!"

Zant looked up at the other man who now had his hands fisted on his hips, his bloody face scrunched into a glower as he looked down on him. He let the girl's hand fall to the floor listlessly, then rose to his full height and snapped his fingers. He felt the tattoos imprinted all over his body sting as power rushed out of them to break the spell, and the man rustled out of his old skin with a sigh. It fell around him like a dead husk, and once it was shed, it vanished in flurry of black and red particles.

Ghirahim shook out his head of snowy white hair, brushing it back with pale fingers once he was done. He nodded at Zant, his movements quick and birdlike now that he wasn't weighed down by the false face.

"Thank you. That feels much better," he simpered, baring his teeth in a smile – blood still painted his lips and ruined his stained clothes. The glamour couldn't take away what he had done, and it hadn't kept the bloodthirsty glitter in his eyes hidden.

"Let's just get this over with," Zant rumbled.

The girl stirred suddenly, her eyes opening with a heavy groan. Her beach blond hair caught the ethereal light from the orbs hanging above her and made it glow almost white except for the strands that had been colored red by blood. She looked foggy – her limbs twitched erratically as if she couldn't quite figure out how to move them in a way that would help her get up and run away.

Her eyes flickered between the two men standing over her, anger, pain, and fear coloring her round face with hints of a ruddy flush. Her lips moved silently and her features took on a cast of concentration, but judging by the way her eyes widened in disbelief, what she expected to occur didn't. Ghirahim must have drugged her without her realizing it. Zant couldn't complain – things would go much more smoothly with her powers incapacitated.

They looked at each other, nodded, and together, they bent down and picked the girl up. She wasn't heavy, but she did start to thrash weakly, her high voice rising in a cracking, wordless screech that stung like barbs. When she tried talking, it came out as an intoxicated jumble of gibberish, Island Hylian, and insults that seemed mostly directed towards Ghirahim. He heard _monster, child killer_, and _bastard _sprinkled in the mix, along with some other curses that he didn't think a twelve year old girl would know – should know. Zant almost thought Ghirahim was ignoring her, but then he saw the wide grin tearing his accomplice's face in two, and he knew that he heard everything loud and clear.

They dragged her over to the altar, the tips of her shoes scuffing against the ground as she kicked and screamed, her voice growing stronger as she continued to wake up and fully realize her predicament. It only aggravated his headache; soon, he realized he had stopped and twisted her arm to make her just shut up. It had the opposite effect, and she shrieked and struggled even harder, tears cutting down her face. His face warped into a grimace as he jacked her arm up higher, not even hearing her cries anymore through the fog of his anger, stress, and pain.

"Now, what was that you said about making sure she wasn't damaged?" Ghirahim said quietly, his gleeful tone calling Zant out of his head and back into the dark room. He had stopped dead in his tracks when the opportunity to point out his superior's hypocrisy arose, and as soon as the Twili realized what he was doing and dropped the girl's arm with a muttered excuse, he pulled the girl closer to him. A pale, almost possessive arm draped across her neck like a garrote and tightened – she shuddered, her eyes closing.

"I'm sorry about him. He's under a lot of stress right now, and he didn't mean it," Ghirahim crooned into her ear, shooting Zant a mockingly dirty look. Zant's eyes narrowed at him, but otherwise he said nothing.

"I… I want to go home," the girl said haltingly, her o's morphing into a's, her heavy accent picking up the end of her sentence and turning it into a question. Her necklace caught the sinister light as she breathed and spun it off as innocent winks of silver.

"I know… I know… But think… you will be the key to our new world, little one. Doesn't that sound exciting?" Ghirahim gave the girl a cautionary squeeze on the arm that he still held. She either didn't notice or chose to ignore it. Zant saw her throat shift as she swallowed.

She shook her head. "I want tah go hahme," she said, less hesitation this time, speed slurring her words even more. "Yah cannat do this tah me and get away with it." Her eyes opened then, her dark stare pointed straight at Zant. Her eyes reflected the candlelight around them, but the pretty, soft flickers of gold couldn't block the sour bile that raged in her gaze. "The gahdesses don't take kind tah child murderers and bastards, and soon, yah see what happens tah those what thumb their nahses at 'em." Her butchered, broken Hylian sounded like a prophecy, and something cold trickled down Zant's spine as her nearly black eyes flashed at him knowingly.

Despite her childish visage, there was something ancient in the girl's face and the way she looked down on him even while tilting her head up to look him square in the eye. The conviction in her expression – _thinks she's right thinks she's special smack that righteous little bitch wipe it right off – _wasn't ignorance born of her youth. He sensed a presence in the room that wasn't of this world, and his heart began to stammer in his chest. It relaxed soon after. Now he knew they had the right sacrifice – one possessing the blood and soul of the Mother Herself. Any remorse or pity for the girl he might have harbored in his subconscious fled and replaced itself with hatred because _h__ow dare she look down on him just like __**her**__ thinks she knows __**everything**__-_

Ghirahim missed the second long exchange that passed between the two. He only looked down at the crown of her head and snickered, not noticing the tension now crackling between the towering Twili and the tiny Island girl.

"All this talk of the gods makes me sad that you won't be here to see when they finally fall, little one."

There was a snap, a flurry of shiny black like a beetle's wing, and then a curved sword rested at the girl's neck. Waiting. Her face was blank, but Zant saw a flash of terror in her eyes, saw her shoulders tensing and her hands curling into anxious fists. Steeling herself.

"Go ahead. Do it," she whispered faintly, looking straight at Zant as she did – talking to her judge rather than her executioner.

For a second, he was tempted to let Ghirahim off his short leash and let him do what he did best (and enjoyed the most). After all, they needed her blood and needed her dead, and his way would technically accomplish both ends. It probably wouldn't be the most efficient way, and it would probably be much messier, but it would be worth it just to see her put back in her place right before she died.

But then he took in the panic that was slowly slipping through her stony mask. Her fists were trembling at her sides, and her bottom lip tucked between her teeth as she tried to angle herself away from Ghirahim without cutting herself on the sword at her neck. Zant's eyes flicked back up to his bloodstained smile and confirmed what he suspected before. There was no way that the only thing he did to that boy was slit his throat; the girl was too terrified of him for that to be true.

He decided to show some mercy, so he simply nodded at Ghirahim. His face sagged in what Zant decided was disappointment, but he did obey. His hand moved almost too fast to see, and there was a deadly black blur that sent the girl reeling backwards. Her hands groped for her throat to stop the sudden swell of blood staining her shirt and the pendant she had been wearing clinked to the dirt floor, its silver chain severed neatly. Her eyes impossibly wide and glassy in her face, she still stood against Ghirahim for a good three seconds before her legs suddenly relaxed and she slumped, boneless. He grabbed her now limp arms and hauled her upright.

"Quickly, quickly! Get her over to the altar!" Zant hissed, bending down and hiking up her legs so the dying girl was parallel to the ground. He barely noticed that there was blood on his face, slowly sliding down in warm arcs towards his chin. Her faltering gasps made a rattling sound that seemed to fill the tiny room, seemed to make the flames of the candles swell.

The two men scuttled the remaining foot to the altar and set her down on the stone. After they pulled away, the girl twitched a couple of times, her bloody hands jerking out in spasms and just barely missing the pile of ashes behind her. Besides the messy arcs she left behind from her stained palms, blood began to pool under her slit throat, looking almost black under the blue lights that still bobbed overhead.

Ghirahim nudged Zant with one sharp elbow when the pile of ashes began to swirl up, motes of dust dancing in the air and hovering over the girl's body like a cloud of cigarette smoke. There it stopped and collected, growing denser as the girl continued to bleed out. Waiting.

Finally, the desperate guttering of her breathing, which had gone for a long minute in the impatient silence, died out. Her eyes were still open, but now they were empty over a pair of bloodstained, slightly parted lips. Zant felt his previous agitation lessen. She looked twelve in death, not thousands of years his senior. She had made him feel small, so now, it seemed fitting that she looked tiny and withered on the gray slab of stone.

As soon as the girl went completely still, the cloud of smoke roiled down, masking her still warm corpse from view. The temperature in the room skyrocketed, the air turning muggy and close in a heartbeat. Zant felt sweat beading on his forehead and blooming on the palms of his hands. The lights hanging above them started to flicker, and then went out entirely, leaving the room in candlelight and darkness. Ghirahim didn't complain this time – he was as quiet as Zant was, his eyes fixed on the scene in front of them.

There was a drawn out, creaking groan, and then a pulse of light, golden and soft. It lit up the cloud of dust like a sunbeam, the silhouette of the body standing in dark contrast to the mauve and grey and yellow tones of the ash surrounding it. The light went out and then came back, brighter than before. A faint whining came with it, and it stayed even as the light began to flash insistently, like a strobe. Zant had to close his eyes and turn his head slightly to stop his headache from cresting up into agonizing territory, and only pride kept him from childishly covering his ears to keep that infernal keening from piercing through his eardrums.

It seemed as soon as it started, it was over. After the brightest beat yet, the light went dim, an infant star hovering in the center of a nebula of dust. It vanished with a ripping, screaming sound that actually did make him finally give in and cover his ears – it wasn't so much that it hurt his ears, but his brain. The scream was juvenile, and cracking, and agonized, and then it was just… gone.

A wind blew outwards from the altar in a strong, arid gust, making the two men step back and shield their faces from the acrid stench it brought. Zant could hear Ghirahim coughing under his breath right next to him, too close to him in the suffocating near-darkness. He took a hurried step to the side to get away from him, but then stumbled as the room went dark The candles had all gone dead with an abrupt hushing sound; the smell of smoke covered the bad smell and filled the small room quickly. Party over. Happy birthday, Master.

Zant opened his eyes and blinked away tears caused by the smoke and dust hanging in the air. With a muttered word that came between choking coughs, the lights hanging above them came back on. There was still a figure on the altar, but the girl was now gone – sitting in a pool of her blood, an elderly man hunched over, looking at them with an empty expression on his furrowed face. The flat, icy blue light made the old man's eyes look like empty space under his prominent brow and set the wisps of white hair on his balding head glimmering. Zant felt a breath hiss out of him that was half relief and half terror; they must have made a mistake.

He looked like he was straddling death's doorstep, an ancient one seconds away from taking his last breath or a ghost brought to life. This was not what Zant was expecting. He was expecting the Master that had whispered to him ever since he was a teenager; the one who had fanned his ambition and stroked his ego and made him what he was today; someone strong to finally bring them victory and share his power. This thing, a person so old he could see his whole skeleton shifting under his scarred, worn-thin skin – this was not his Master.

His thin, wrinkled mouth twisted up into a humorless smile as they gawked at him, flashing rotting teeth and black gums.

"Am I not what you were expecting?" he wheezed wetly, trying to laugh but instead letting out a barking cough. His voice was breathy and weak, and Zant could see his ribcage heaving under the sagging skin and tangled, wiry hair that made up his torso. Black, worn pants clung to his atrophied legs, and bandages hung loosely around his bony wrists and ankles like linen bangles.

But it was the voice under all the fragility that he finally recognized, and with that, Zant relaxed a little, enough to finally shift his body into a position of reverence, down on one knee with his hand pressing against his heart. He could feel it calming down from its previous panicked fit of throwing itself against his ribs.

"It is just an honor to see you in person again, Master," Ghirahim simpered from the same vantage point as Zant.

"Get off the ground… Now is not the time for that. Just help me up," he snapped, his voice bitter and gravelly. He cleared his throat again as the two scurried towards him, coaxing his stiff bones off the altar and helping him stand once both bare feet were firmly anchored to the floor. He would have been almost as tall as either of them, but his back was stooped with age, his spine jutting up in an ugly ridge all the way down to where it disappeared into his meager trousers.

Master swayed dangerously, and Zant grabbed his arm to keep him from toppling over. He shook him off with a growl.

"I'm not a complete invalid, you know. It's just… been awhile since I've found myself in a body." He started coughing again, one gnarled fist coming up to cover his mouth. He squinted up at Zant when he was done. Now that his eyes caught the light, they were no longer voids, but a cold, golden yellow surrounded by bloodshot sclera. Zant held back a shudder – he felt like those eyes were peeling everything away and looking straight inside him, inspecting him to see if he was worthy.

"You did well orchestrating my return, Zant," he said softly. "Your reward is coming." Zant caught a flicker of ethereal gold as the old man curled his hand around his servant's bicep of his own accord – his grip was feather-light and weak. "Now take us away from this place."

The Twili tipped his head up to look at the pale man standing on the opposite side of the ancient. "You remember what your next assignment is?"

Ghirahim tilted his head knowingly, a smirk spilling on his face again. "Please. You act like I would suddenly forget the best part of my job." The crimson blood on his shirt and hands seemed to stand out suddenly, bright and fresh. As he lifted his hand above his head to snap out of existence, he let out an almost drunken giggle. The chiming laughter was the only thing that remained behind other than a shower of diamonds after he vanished.

Zant sent one last look towards the now empty altar. The hand on his arm squeezed lightly, and after the fleeting reminder, he finally worked up the energy to will himself and his Master away to somewhere warm and secret, where he could rest and regain his power until the time came to confront the other Two the prophecy spoke of.

Zant was certain that this attempt, unlike the others Master had told him about, would not end in failure.

…

"Mom," she called out as she stumbled through the door. She left it hanging open, unsure if she would have to flee. Fear coursed through her, shivery hot and fast, her heart pulsing in her head and in her fingertips. She let her backpack fall to the floor with a thud as she looked around for her mother, her head moving in sharp jerks left and right.

Some of her anxiety drained out her feet and turned into shock. It dropped away into emptiness once it had worn off.

The living room was completely gutted. The couch, television and bookshelves were all gone, not even leaving imprints in the carpet where they had been pushed up against the wall – speaking of the walls, weren't they supposed to be piss yellow? Now they were a flat, featureless white, without even the ever present collage of pictures and paintings her mother had used to try and cover the ugly shade they weren't allowed to paint over.

She took a couple of hesitant steps forward to lean around and peer through the cramped archway into the attached kitchen. The tiny room was similarly empty, the single window cut into the white walls illuminating the thick dust hovering a couple inches above the floor like morning fog. She bit her lip, the last of her panic departing to make plenty of room for her mounting unease. What was this cold and sterile place masquerading as her home?

"Mom," she yelled again as she pulled herself into a standing position, her knees locked and her back ramrod straight. Her voice cracked towards the end of her call; she cringed. "Mom, are you here?"

No answer other than the placeholder hum of complete silence. She ran light and fast through the kitchen – contrary to her fleeting, hysterical delusion that there was no floor, it held beneath her feet with only a tiny creak of protest. The film of dust on the floor drifted away with her and clung curling to her ankles. It streamed away into nothingness as she ambled carefully down the narrow hallway to the bathroom and bedrooms, one hand skimming over the wall, half to keep her steady and half out of habit.

She spared a passing glance for the bathroom – empty. She stood in front of the door to her mother's bedroom, preparing herself in one, two, threeeee oh _gods_ what if she was in there _but she was-_

She pushed the bloody thought away as she shoved the door open. It slammed against the wall with a dull crash, swinging right back at her and hiding the vacant room from view. She felt herself relax before she actually registered mentally that this one wasn't it she _wasn't in there_-

She finally turned to her own bedroom door. It stared back at her blankly, the wood painted white revealing nothing new to her – only that this was the last place her mother could be. She swallowed, then crept forward until her toes were nudging the crack at the bottom of the door. For a moment, she contemplated getting on her hands and knees and peeking through that to try and glean what she could without opening the door. She closed her eyes as she dismissed the thought – that line of thinking would get her nowhere, despite the comfort the notion of stalling brought her.

She just didn't want to know for sure.

She fumbled for the doorknob, her world still a mess of black and riotous patterns that squeezed out from behind her clenched eyelids. She turned it slowly, the metal cool against the warm thrumming of her blood pumping through her hand. She felt like she was going to be sick before she finally steeled herself and pushed the door open, slow and steady. It squeaked gently before hitting the wall with a thud. She pulled in a deep, unsteady breath through her nose and pushed it back out, fighting against the urge to just hold it. She already felt like she was going to explode – that didn't help matters.

All she had to do was open her eyes. Staying suspended without closure was worse than just opening her eyes and knowing. She would feel better after.

Despite all this mental coaching, she didn't open her eyes and look. In the meantime, her imagination ran wild, gruesome images piling on top of each other and flickering past her mind's eye, each more horrible than the last. They only coaxed her eyes closed tighter even as she told herself to stop stop stop who26 could want my mom c'mon you're just being _SILLY_-

She opened her eyes with a preemptive gasp for air that sounded through the empty apartment like a scream.

The room was barren. Her bed wasn't there. Her mother wasn't there – not even what could have been left of her. Nothing.

A hysterical bubble of laughter filtered up from her stomach and burst out of her mouth without warning – giggles born of relief filled the heavy air, lifted it so it wasn't so oppressive. She was just being silly. Silly silly girl. Her mom probably just got held up somewhere. Maybe she was talking to some neighbors. Maybe she was out getting groceries or chatting with her students at the museum. Her mother was a grown woman. She was not her keeper – she didn't have to tell her daughter where she was at all times.

She stopped laughing abruptly when she heard a croaking moan from behind her. She froze, her mouth still gaping open in an interrupted chuckle as freezing cold terror ran up her spine and made her hair stand on end with a nauseating tingle. She spun around, nearly falling over in the process.

There was nothing behind her, but she saw something she hadn't noticed before. The bathroom wasn't empty. Through the crack between the door and the wall, she could see a streak of red, the glimmer of a mirror reflecting something blonde and brown back at her, practically shoving what she had missed in her face _hey why don't you come see what I've got here I THINK YOU'LL WANT TO SEEE IT_-

She took a cautious step forward without even noticing that she was doing it. She could feel her lungs expanding and contracting, but she felt like she still needed to breathe, like she was going to pass out any second now from lack of oxygen. Her hands twitched as she took another step, depositing her at the crack in the door.

She closed her mouth after she took one final gulp of air, set herself, then pushed the door open all the way. She half expected it to catch on something fleshy and soft when she reached the wall and she slowed down and cringed in anticipation-

But it didn't. The door ended its arc with a hard thud as metal met with drywall. She felt lightheaded as she turned to the wall opposite, and what she saw was almost the final blow to her sanity. She felt her knees almost give out as she let out a tiny scream and then clapped her hands over her mouth WHERE DID THEY GET THE BLOOD-

Dripping, rust red streaks of dried blood covered the wall in broad, uneven strokes and spatters. They trailed down from the highest corner, painted across the pane of glass that was the mirror, grew bigger and smaller so they covered every inch of the walls in a psychotic mural. For a second, she almost didn't put together the fact that they made the characters to words; her vision was swimming too much to grasp the message. She shook her head and tried to mouth the words written on the wall.

She walked along the wall, following the twisted trail the words made with her eyes, and when she could reach, her shaking hand. She tried to avoid touching the stains, but she accidentally brushed against them. She pulled her hand away like she had been burned and looked at the pads of her fingers in alarm. The blood was dry – so nothing was there – but she still felt her skin crawl and her stomach churn. She rubbed her hand furiously on her jacket as she finally paced her way to the opposite end of the narrow room where a single, sloppy word stretched almost as tall as her.

"By the time you wake up, it will already be over," she whispered to herself, her voice breaking over the sound of the threat halfway through the sentence. Her voice had vanished by the time she reached the last word. She whirled around with a frayed scream when the door to the bathroom slammed shut behind her with a loud bang.

She staggered to the door in a flash and rattled the handle frantically, her breath coming out in quiet fits and sobs. It wouldn't budge, even when she fumbled for the lock on this side of the door and unlocked it. She shuddered, then held herself and stepped away from the door when she got the urge to throw herself against the door like a caged animal – but that wouldn't do her any good. She wouldn't weigh enough to break it down, only enough to hurt herself. She felt herself trembling spastically, and her arms tightened as she pulled herself inward. She was alone in here. Blood couldn't hurt her.

Her eyes still skated along the message on the wall, paranoia forcing her hand. Nothing moved, just like she thought, but when she got to the mirror-

A figure flashed across the face in a flurry of black and red and silver. She screeched in surprise and stepped backwards, tripping over her own tangled feet as her arms flew out to the side to try and steady herself but she was already falling falling _falling_ and she thought she was going to crash against the wall but she didn't, she fell into something fleshy and soft and her mother's arms locked around her and all she could smell was her perfume and the stench of rot mixing and making her feel faint oh gods she couldn't see anything all she could see was the blurred mirror and her mother's head leering around to whisper in her ear-

"You're late – I was expecting you hours ago. How much effort would it have taken just to walk through the door and save me?" she crooned, her voice neutral and soft – neither happy to see Zelda or angry that she was tardy. The only things she could read were dead and silk. Her fingers reached around and caressed her cheek, and Zelda couldn't even struggle, could only marvel at how cold and smooth her touch was on her face and how it leeched all the warmth away-

"I'm glad you're home, Zelda dear – now never leave me again."

She felt her feet leave the ground as she ascended – still wrapped in her mother's arms – and the world fell away into black beneath her.

…

Zelda's eyes snapped open as the dream reached its climax.

A harsh intake of air and a quick jerk to a half-sitting position, and she was awake. As her breathing eased into deep gasps and her heart slowed down from its panicked jitter, she came back to herself. Her head pounded, the pain pulsating with her breathing and heartbeat, and her stomach roiled like she was about to throw up. Her lips quickly sealed together to keep back anything that might come up, her breath hissing out of her nose.

Everything was sore and throbbing, and she moaned thickly as the dark room flashed red. This nocturnal torment happened regularly, but this was the worst she had ever felt waking up. She blinked away the spots spinning in front of her eyes, licked her dry lips. Zelda squirmed her way over to the wall by her bed and raised her right hand to knock for her mother.

She froze when a gleam of gold caught her eye.

Zelda's lips cracked open in a silent question, and they stayed parted as she slowly slouched into a sitting position. She covered the back of her hand with its partner like the symbol she had seen would melt into thin air before she could get a proper look. Surely it wasn't what she thought it was.

"Raito," she murmured absently, easily shaping the energy being drawn out of her into a small, condensed ball of light. As soon as she cut off the spell, the wisp bobbed above her head, dim so it wouldn't aggravate her migraine.

Now that she could see, Zelda lifted her cupped hand up like a child inspecting a caught firefly. Her eyes widened in her pale face, more bewildered than anything. She squeezed them shut and then opened them again, thinking maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her – she was delirious, she was hallucinating, anything. The symbol on the back of her hand could not be real. It was impossible.

She looked around her empty bedroom – maybe she was still dreaming. Zelda had heard that time never passed in a dream, so she eyed the black, boxy alarm clock on the top of her dresser, praying that it would stay frozen. As she watched for what felt like an eternity, the digital numbers flickered from 3:18 to 3:19. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding, then looked back at her hand.

The Triforce was still there, glittering on her skin. As she watched it, it slowly faded from a vibrant gold to a dull, birthmark brown. Even though it wasn't as noticeable as before, the crisp edges remained, the thing looking like a brand on top of the sinew and skin of her hand. She swallowed, a panicked sound guttering from her throat. Her stomach suddenly clenched, and she kicked off her blankets and staggered for the bathroom.

When she was done, Zelda rested her forehead on the porcelain seat. It felt cold against her clammy skin, and she both reveled and shivered at the sensation. She had just closed her eyes, struggling to not vomit again, when there was a faint rap at the door.

_It's Mom,_ she thought, relief trickling thickly down her spine, relieving the tension in her shoulders and her hands.

"It's unlocked," she answered, her voice trailing off as she fumbled for the handle. Before the door opened, she carefully tucked her right hand away on the side of the bowl so Moya couldn't see the mark on her skin – she didn't want her to see, not yet. The toilet flushed over the sound of the door squeaking open, revealing her mother in her coat and walking shoes. Her nose and cheeks were cherry red under wide brown eyes, and a hat was pulled over her pointed ears – she had been out in the cold late autumn air.

Questions and accusations immediately sang through Zelda's head, but she ignored them as her nausea bounced back for round two with her stomach and quickly started to win.

"Honey, what's wrong?" Moya rasped, sounding both surprised and sheepish at the same time. "I thought you'd be asleep by now."

Zelda opened her mouth to answer, but she had to turn quickly and bury her face in the toilet when something other than words came up her throat. She was still heaving when Moya came over and knelt next to her. She combed her daughter's loose hair over her shoulders and out of the way, and when Zelda slumped against the bowl, she started rubbing circles on her back.

"Are you good now?" she asked evenly, her voice low. Zelda's head lolled to the side and rested on the seat, her eyes silently thanking her as she nodded. Moya took in the bags shadowing under her eyes and the pallor painting her skin. "Okay, then let's get you back into bed."Moya half helped, half heaved her daughter to her feet; Zelda sagged against her mother as if her legs wouldn't work anymore, her eyes already closing.

"So do you think you can get to school tomorrow?" Moya asked as they stumbled out into the hallway like one entity with four legs, her voice light and obviously joking.

"Har-de-har-har... So funny, Mom..." Zelda breathed dryly, the pauses between her words betraying how hard it was for her to keep talking. They walked into her bedroom, and Moya helped her lay down, pressing a hand to her forehead once she was situated. The witchlight still flickered above Zelda's bed, nearly out of energy. It sputtered, the effect almost strobe-like on Moya's still red face.

"Well, I can't feel a fever. Hopefully, this will just be a twenty-four hour bug. I'll bring you some water, and you can get some rest." The wisp gave another couple of blinks against her smiling face as she stood, the mattress creaking under the slow movement. Before her mother left the room, Zelda made a noise in the back of her throat.

"Wait... Mom, can I ask you something?" she uttered weakly. Moya stiffened visibly under all her layers before relaxing and turning around.

"Yes, dear?" The lightness in her voice sounded almost forced, saccharine sweet. Zelda decided after a beat that she must have imagined it and ventured on with her query.

"I... Have you ever had a dream come true? Like... it turned out to be a prophecy, like in the legends?"

Moya's head cocked slightly to the side. She walked back over to the pool of light cast by the wisp, and Zelda's eyes followed her, jerking along erratically.

"Yes, actually, I have," she sighed. "I had a dream over and over and over for about a month before your father died, even though I didn't realize what it meant until after the fact. Before, I just thought it was a bad dream, and that's usually what they are - just your mind spinning a nightmare into something bigger," she soothed, taking hold of Zelda's hand where it laid on the blanket.

Zelda noticed the slight spasm that ran up Moya's arm from her her own hand as she struggled not to pull away from her mother's touch, but both of them kept poker faces. She squeezed her clammy fingers carefully, then placed her hand back on the comforter.

"It's nothing. Try to get some sleep, okay? I'll be back in to check on you before I go to work."

Zelda felt her eyes drifting shut as she mumbled an acknowledgement. The werelight flickered out with a muttered word, and now that the room was dark, she slipped into unconsciousness once again. This time, her sleep went on undisturbed.

…

Moya pushed open the door and padded into the bedroom in sock feet and a sweater, her forehead furrowed into a troubled frown. Going slowly so she wouldn't wake up her sleeping daughter, she reached over and flicked the switch to turn on the overhead light. She held her breath while she waited for her to stir, but Zelda remained still. She walked over and set the promised cup of water down on the table beside Zelda's bed, the ice inside clinking quietly against the glass. Her ability to see now restored, Moya knelt down next to her daughter and pulled her right hand towards her.

Even though she suspected that her dreams had come to pass, it was still a shock to see it actually in front of her. The thing she had foreseen for over a decade... It had actually happened, and now she could only stare at it, completely at a loss for what she should do.

Zelda's hand twitched as she moaned in her sleep, and the Triforce emblazoned on the back of her hand shifted with the tendons under her skin. Moya bit her lip and slowly replaced the hand where it had been before, awkwardly patting it before rising to her feet and walking out the door.

She had some calls to make - it appeared that things were moving more quickly than they could have imagined.

* * *

**... I FINALLY FINISHED THIS THING YOU GUYS-**

**And so now begins the rewrite of my very first Zelda multichap, Empathy - I hope you enjoy it, because I've been working pretty hard on outlining everything up and making things much better than they were before. If you're an old reader who's been waiting for this for awhile (since March or something - sorry!), or if you're a new reader who's just chanced upon this story, thanks for giving it a read - and maybe a review xD**

**Thanks a trillion times over to Skyward Princess of Time, my beta for this story, because she's amazing and awesome and has helped me soooo much with this story.**

**Hopefully, I'll have a new chapter for this out sometime during... December? Swimming's started, so my free time and energy are kind of limited at the moment, and I'm also attempting NaNoWriMo for another story that I'm trying to get done. I'll keep working at this story in the meantime and try not to keep anyone waiting too long. **

**Thanks again for reading!**

**~Eva**


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